I”ve been meaning to write about this wonderful network - the Women”s Learning Partnership (WLP) - before but have been procrastinating.
No time like the present:
In a nutshell, they”re about female empowerment as part of human equality, and positive thinking : they”re a network of networks - they work with 18 autonomous and independent partner organizations in the Global South, particularly in Muslim-majority societies, to “empower women to transform their families, communities, and societies.”
One of their particular campaigns that I wanted to highlight is “Claiming Equal Citizenship“: the Campaign for Arab Women”s Right to Nationality.
Women’s right to equal citizenship is guaranteed by the majority of Arab constitutions, as well as by international law. Yet across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and the Gulf, women are denied their right to nationality – a crucial component of citizenship.
In almost every country in the MENA and Gulf regions, women who marry men of other nationalities cannot confer their original nationality to their husbands or children. Only fathers, not mothers, can confer their nationality to their children.
Discriminatory laws denying women equal nationality rights undermine women’s status as equal citizens in their home countries. Such laws send the message that women do not enjoy a direct relationship with the state, but must access their citizenship rights through mediation of a male family member, such as a father or a husband. Until women in the MENA and Gulf regions are recognized as full nationals and citizens, they cannot participate fully in public life, nor claim the other rights to which they are entitled as equal members of their societies.
The denial of women’s nationality rights also created real suffering for dual nationality families living in the woman’s home country. Children and spouses are treated as foreigners and must obtain costly residence permits. Children are often excluded from social services such as social security, healthcare and subsidized or free access to education. In many countries, spouses and children have limited employment opportunities and are unable to own property. In terms of psychological impact, many women feel isolated and guilty because they feel responsible for the difficulties faced by their families, while children suffer from low self-esteem because of their second-class status.
I have written about this problem as affecting Bangladeshi women in the past - not being able to confer nationality upon their children - as it is passed through the father. Essentially this is how I found out about this campaign, one of the WLP activists commented upon my post and pointed me to their work.
The goals of the campaign are to call for
- Legal reform enabling women to confer their nationality to their husbands and children without condition
- Full implementation of reformed nationality laws and equal access to these laws for all women
- Recognition of women as equal citizens in all areas of life
Please sign the petitions to support equal rights to citizenship for men and women.
Your signature sends a message of support to partners, who can use the international visibility to strengthen their advocacy efforts for amending nationality laws.
Good for Lord Falconer. Glad someone”s standing in the way of the Sun and David Cameron in their attempts to get rid of the Human Rights Act. Why they think it will help them I”m not sure -but it seems to be one of those time where the “rights of society” is much vaunted and expected to not come at the cost of individuals. Which is all very well and good - how do all those Sun readers think it won”t come at a cost to one of them? All this talk is clothed as “good for the country” but it seems to me that it boils down to one thing: baying for blood - demands for “vengeance”. So the accusations run - “oh you”re being soft on “crime” - you”re thinking of the criminal”s rights and not ours!” And yes I heard Mr. Cameron say they”d “re-write” this Human Rights Act- but exactly what does that mean? Will it translate to - “yeah let”s not give anyone a fair trial because we know who”s guilty, and we”ll be really tough on crime: i.e. we”ll go for nasty sentences which won”t do any good but at least we”ll feel better” i.e. unadulterated vengeance. Next thing you know we”ll be back to the capital punishment days. After all - back in the day, the reason they”d give for topping someone off would be “but who cares about this criminal”s rights? We want vengeance”. As if somehow the victim”s rights are being considered by this type of revenge. Sounds like the old desert laws to me - an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It”s one to talk about the application of the Act etc. it”s another to say ah well this human rights thing is not working - let”s scrap it.
Backing the Sun”s campaign sounds like a silly attempt to gain some votes. Sure you win some and you lose some. Someone is baying for blood so let”s give in to them - make us look tough. After all, Tony”s obsession with respect and ASBOs a bit hard to follow I suppose.
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Lord Falconer is the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs. In his speech to Parliament today he strongly defended the Human Rights Act, saying the government is “unashamed and unembarrassed” by the legislation. “We intend to mount a campaign for human rights - human rights not just for oppressed minorities, but for everyone“. At a meeting of human rights lawyers at LSE a couple of weeks ago he noted that the Government is planning two new guides to interpreting the Human Rights Act - given all the confusion and hoo-ha.
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Further reading courtesy of the BBC
So the discussion around “foreign policy” - Ministers saying but of course we wouldn”t change our foreign policy just because of some stupid terrorist threat, or what some stupid people suggested has something to do with the threat”. Right - if that”s the only reason you were going to change what is agreed by most people as a highly unethical “foreign policy” - (ooh i love that phrase - such a nice way of “externalizing” and removing the problem one or two steps away - “but dear, it”s foreign policy” doesn”t affect us here”) - clearly it”s not good enough.
How clever though - the reason we heard so much about this fine phrase of not changing policy “because we don”t negotiate with terrorists” - because then - if anyone does speak up about the lack of fit of being a democratic civilized nation and the shitty stuff that passes for foreign policy - why there”s a simple solution: Honey we don”t change policy to suit terrorists - okay? Even if it”s shit we gotta put up with it. We can”t be seen to be responding..
Well that might seem sensible except that it doesn”t seem to be understanding the point of terrorism. Which is to cause terror and gain power. If not “literal” power of the sort governments have - power nonetheless - power over how people see themselves, what they believe in, what they will do for those beliefs etc. - i.e. moral authority. As i”ve said elsewhere, terrorists and governments have much in common - a guy like Bin Laden has plenty in common with politicians who want power over “their people” - scaring your people, propaganda, etc. etc.
Terrorists are effectively similar to people who are career politicians - their end game is the same - terrorists use different means. ( and for those of you who believe the end justifies the means - think about this long and hard..) They”re all folks who basically in search of nation-states and the accompanying power and authority. ( remember what distinguishes the Nation-State from any other form of formal social organization - the monopoly on violence) So whilst some folks might not like my saying it like it is - some people use “legitimate” roots of gaining power within the existing model - and some - who feel they can”t get power in the system - find other ways of grabbing power. Power - also - manifests itself in different ways. Essentially the “War on Terror” gave Osama Bin Laden exactly what he wanted - to be seen as some sort of moral authority for Muslims. Machiavellian tactics in use here.
In any case - someone somewhere said if you magically wave a wand and change British foreign policy it wouldn”t mean the violence would end. Well - obviously, plumping for peace doesn”t mean all the violent idiots out there are never going to kill anyone any more. But it does mean that with less violence going about, we can spot the violence a mile off and say ah - this isn”t good, and in the process distinguish ourselves from these other criminals. otherwise one is permanently in the subjective state of oh well i can kill some people because I have justification, but these people cannot come and kill me which is fine for a lot of us clearly! but some of would rather be honest about the whole malarkey. In any case this is the basis for “law and order” in ordinary society “within” the nation-state - you can”t go about “taking the law into your own hands” because if you do, you are as guilty as the other party. Anyway, this is obvious so the people who don”t get it aren”t really interested I suppose. Still the point remains that in trying to condemn terrorism for the shitty thing it is, state-sponsored violence gets in the way of being able to do this properly. Pure and simple that”s what it is. Not this business of “justifying” terrorism - (which is actually what the countries are trying to do) but precisely the opposite - condemn terrorism and violence for what it is. If countries want to go about being violent - then obviously we ordinary individuals have tried but have not been able to stop them. Pointing to the cycle of violence which makes it much harder to stop future violence is hardly “justifying” violence - precisely the opposite - you want to stop ALL kinds of violence! if you wanted to justify violence you wouldn”t be much interested in stopping the overall cycle. I guess a lot of people are just too dumb to see that or frankly = not interested in the overall picture. They could just be honest about that.
And “justification” of violence is neither here nor there ( in a moralizing world it might be ) for those of us who”re interested purely and simply in providing a suitable environment to live in and enjoy ourselves however best we can - it doesn”t matter. We just want peace. I”m not bothered about “oh this person”s violence was good and this person”s was evil - that good and evil dichotomy is frankly nonsense and “religious” if anything. All this moralizing again simply reminds me of the sort of thing that terrorists are supposed to be about. “Oh we have a glorious cause for our violence. Some say it”s democracy** ( hah ) and some say its their religion.” Oh great. I”m not interested in either excuse thanks very much - no shrapnel or shards of glass in my skin is what i”m interested in! And being able to live to savour tomorrow.
Is this sooo difficult to understand? Surely not.
** Amusing sidenote: { ha- i suppose soon we”ll be hearing calls for “banning” democracy because their proponents have resorted to violence in their pursuit of it - in a similar way we hear that religion must be banned because of all the people who”ve resorted to violence in their pursuit of it..} Golly its the sort of oxymoronic thing where anti-war protestors stage a “war” with the other side to make their point. Oh then of course people would say “one should ban pacifism”. Really there”s no end to amusement - sit back and view the world..as long as we don”t take it seriously, you could fill a book with “can you believe they actually thought this one up..
well it didn”t go through..old clarke seemed to have changed his mind.
Check out some more information on this here -
why must we always go backwards? instead of making progress with the cannabis issue - like getting closer and closer to legalization, no no let”s go back. [and who said the government didn"t have a reverse gear?]
that miserable charles clarke ( is it sth with Home Secrataries - they just don”t like anyone having any fun?perhaps sth in the job title - will have to look that one up..) wants to reclassify cannabis. why? well he says that reclassifying cannabis from Class B to C ( which happened about 2 years ago now) confused the public. Right sure. So let”s confuse everyone even more by re-re-classifying it yet again. ( re re wind..) [ isn"t he supposed to be so busy looking for terrorists and keeping dodgy foreigners out ( heh heh) to have no time to worry about who"s getting stoned or not?]
anyway i can”t see what the fuss is. all those poor policemen will have to spend all their time chasing people who”re lying around procrastinating and not bothering anyone. oh but we”ve heard about the argument how all these marijuana “users” will become “criminalized” ( ha its so funny that people should use that argument to keep it illegal. you”d think anyone rational would realize that if that”s what the main concern is - why then they ought to be jumping on the legalization bandwagon. tehse people can”t really be very clear about the concept/ relationship of “illegal” and “public” and “open” and “shady” and “black markets” can they.
Certainly more education should be encouraged: obviously you”d think you ought to have that anyway (about all substances anway doh- and not just some silly leaflet at university or sth) ..why we always have to go down the “let”s brush it under the carpet and try and criminalize the situation - that will work won”t it -” route i can”t think. What are we a world of ostriches?
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Dame Ruth Runciman, who chaired the Police Foundation report that first recommended the downgrading of cannabis, said “That there had been no significant increase in use of the drug since it was downgraded. She said the move had been sensible but had been very badly handled and created much public misunderstanding.
“To rereclassify is as ill-judged as it can be in my view,†she said on Jan 6th. “I think it will add greatly to the confusion. I think it is a very ill-judged thing to do and that it actually puts cannabis where it does not belong in the scale of relative harm.â€Â
Milestones of Reclassification
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